“I think if you don’t evolve you’re probably not that good.”
— James Skelly

“Music breeds its own inspiration. You can only do it by doing it. You may not feel like it, but you push yourself.”
― Burt Bacharach

“If you don’t try and force it, a song will find the proper moment to come to life.”
― Valerie Simpson

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
― John Lennon

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
― William Wordsworth

“Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.”
― Frank Harte

“Songwriting is a bitch. And then it has puppies”
― Steven Tyler, Aerosmith

“People say you make your best work when in despair, but I think happiness is a good place to write from”
― Paul Weller

“Great songs aren’t written, they’re rewritten”
― R.C. Bannon

“Learning an instrument isn’t about becoming a star anymore than learning to swim means you want to become a haddock”
― Nick Mason, Pink Floyd

“For me, songwriting is something like breathing: I just do it. But that doesn’t mean you’re fantastic.”
― Adam Duritz, Counting Crows

“All songs are living ghosts. And long for a living voice”
― Brendan Kennelly

“I tried to look at writing a song almost like solving a mystery. The song was there, buried somewhere in my brain. All I had to do was follow the clues until I figured it out.”
― Jon Skovron

“Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.”
― Jimmy Buffett

“I might lie a lot but never in my lyrics.”
― Courtney Love

“Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house – the colour of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and mortar of the house.”
― Sir Benjamin Britten

“Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.”
— Brian Molko, Placebo

“Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you’ll suck forever.”
― Brian Wilson

“The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.”
― Eddie Van Halen

“Food is music to the body, music is food to the heart.”
― Gregory David Roberts

“If after two weeks you still can’t write your middle-eight, the best course of action is to see a psychiatrist”
― Ray Davies

“Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears – it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.”
— Oliver Sacks

“Most things I worry about never happen anyway.”
— Tom Petty

“Rock’n’roll is not red carpets and MySpace friends, rock’n’roll is dangerous and should piss people off”
― Gerard Way, My Chemical Romance

“All I can be is me – whoever that is.”
― Bob Dylan

“Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand”
― Hayley Williams, Paramore

“Its a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence”
― David Byrne